


Retrospect

by ziskandra



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-23
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-19 00:25:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 10,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11886045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziskandra/pseuds/ziskandra
Summary: They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die and he's about to find out just how right they are.A series of vignettes exploring Alec Ryder's relationships with his nearest and dearest, and the faltering steps he took to bridge the gaps between them.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> This was my first time successfully participating in a big bang, and I absolutely definitely could not have made it to the finish line without the support of my friends! Special shout out to my beta, ladyiszy - you're amazing and I love you even if you did eventually ban me from uttering the words 'Alec Ryder' in your presence. :')
> 
> This fic is accompanied by art from tumblr user fdaffy, who is super talented and an absolute delight to work with! Check out their art masterpost [here](https://fdaffy.tumblr.com/post/164568151817/this-year-i-took-part-in-the-mebb2017-exchange)!
> 
>  
> 
>   
> 

**1\. Introduction**

( **habitat 7,** t minus 3 minutes **)**  
 ****

No parent ever wants to bury their child.  
  
Though Alec’s relationship with fatherhood has been fraught with tension, this simple fact rings true. Adrenaline roils under his skin. Of course it is at the pinnacle of his death that he feels the most alive. He must act, and fast. The remaining seconds are critical. 

He will have to remove his his helmet. He will have to remove his helmet so that his daughter can live. To consider anything else is unforgivable. SAM whispers quietly in the corners of his mind, giving voice to the thoughts Alec does not have time to comprehend.

“Alec, if you undertake this action, you will perish.”    
  
It is the beauty of quantum computing that SAM’s processor operates faster than Alec’s. Alec is limited by the constraints of his human brain. SAM is not. SAM will continue learning without him.   
  
SAM will live. 

Alec will not.   
  
There is no other choice. He has extinguished all other possibilities. This is the way it has to be.  
  
It is more or less what he deserves.   


* 

( **habitat 7** , 2819 )

They’re dabbling with technology they don’t understand, but if there’s one thing that Alec Ryder is sure of, it’s that given the right time and resources, SAM will be able to comprehend it. Just look at this stuff. Give him time, the right tools, the right people, and maybe here he really will find the answers he’s been looking for.

He has never been a tactile person, but he lays a hand against his daughter’s arm anyway and smiles. It’s been so long his muscles almost strain at the unfamiliar movement, but he doesn’t care. 

_There’s hope, at least._  

He also doesn’t care that she won’t be able to see his face through his helmet, but maybe she doesn’t have to. She smiles at him in return, reminds him that hope is all that they’re looking for. His heart both swells with pride at the tenacity and courage she’s showing, and twinges with guilt at the fact that he’d hardlyknown these things about her before.

If only he’d been paying attention.     


*

( **the citadel,** 2175 )

“Your mother told me you wanted to learn to shoot a gun.” As his daughter gazes petulantly up at him, he wonders if those had been the right words to say.

“ _Yeah,_ ” she answers with patient exasperation, “and every time I asked you, you just said ‘ _why_ ’.” 

He has to give it to her. Her approximation of his stern disinterest is painfully accurate. Is that how she really sees him? “You never answered,” he points out.   
  
Sara bites her lip, fiddles with the ear muffs in her hands.    
  
He respects the way she holds his gaze as she tells him, “You never listen.”   
  
The accusation hurts, but it’s not wrong. Probably. He has the sneaking suspicion that maybe if he’d been more present, more engaged with his kids’ lives, he’d already know her reasons.

Alec is nothing if not persistent when presented with a challenge, and he ekes out an explanation over the course of their lessons. It’s only when Scott joins them, at Sara’s insistence, that he finally understands. 

“I want to protect people, Dad.”  
  
He remembers that moment well because it had been the first time in months she’d called him that. Scott had stopped some years ago. ( _Give it time,_ Ellen had said, so Alec continues waiting.)  


“From what?” he asks, wondering what his twelve-year-old could have possibly identified as a threat.   
  
“The people who hurt them,” she responds simply moments before firing another round that hits the dead-centre of her target.  
  
So, okay. The likelihood is that Alec hasn’t set the best example for his kids. He seeks to rectify the misconception immediately, motioning for Sara to lower her weapon, which she does, but only with great reluctance. “You can’t just shoot them, squirt,” he tells her, the reprimand more concerned than stern.   
  
“I know,” she answers as though she wishes she didn’t. “But it makes me feel better.”   
  
He’d never admit it to her, but he understands completely.    
  


*

  
( **los angeles,** 2139 )

He doesn’t start school at the same time as everyone else, but he catches up fast. All the other kids act like they're too cool to be here, racing for the seats at the back as soon as the classroom door opens, chewing gum and playing around on their datapads as they swing on their chairs, a seeming game of seeing who can slam their legs the loudest against the floor.  
  
If it’s a game, he's never received an invite. He doesn’t care. He’s here to learn. Whenever the teachers ask questions, his hand is one of the first up. The others don’t bother, at least with their education. What they do enthral themselves with is teasing him for his enthusiasm. He refuses to let it under his skin. Why should he have to pretend that he doesn’t know what he _knows_. 

They like to surround him in the yard after the bell rings, the taunts and jeers following him wherever he goes:   
  
_Smart alec, smart alec, smart alec._   
  
He refuses to let it under his skin. Don’t listen. Don’t listen.    
  
They burrow in anyway, shame and self-doubt nipping at his esteem.    
  
_Smart alec, smart alec, smart alec._

But he hadn’t even done anything wrong. 

_Smart alec, smart alec, smart alec._   
  
Too bad they never learnt he always fights his hardest in self-defense. 

The bullying stops once their taunts have fuelled his fists. 

The name, though, the name sticks.   


*

( **habitat 7** , t minus 2 minutes 50 seconds)    
  
He kneels down beside his daughter as she struggles for breath and wrenches her broken helmet from her head. 


	2. Methodology

**2.** M **ethodology  
  
** **(habitat 7** , t minus 2 minutes 45 seconds)  
 ****

Alec had hoped Andromeda would be the chance to be the father he’d never been, but he was ashamed to admit that he’d needed some encouragement to see the opportunity for what it was. When he’d initially been head-hunted for the Initiative, his thoughts had been focused on what it meant for his project. For SAM.

Fortunately, Ellen had always been the sensible one.   


*   


( **london,** 2185 )   
  
He’s sitting by Ellen’s bedside, hands folded in his lap, watching her fingers tremble as she struggles to bring her cup to her lips. There’s not long to go now, or so he’s been told, but that’s just what the doctors believe. 

Ellen frowns, returns her tea to its tray and fixes Alec with a piercing stare. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing,” she says, and Alec almost drops his own drink into his lap.   
  
“What do you mean?” he asks, doing his best to disguise the erratic beat of his heart. There’s not much he can hide from Ellen, but she’s already told him that she doesn’t want to know, so he tries his best. For her sake.   
  
“With your _team_ , Alec. The Pathfinder team.”   
  
Alec can breathe easily again, but that doesn’t make him any less confused. It certainly wasn’t the answer he was expecting.“What do you mean?” he asks, non-plussed.    
  
“Your second-in-command, Cora. She’s like a daughter to you.”   
  
He struggles to answer because his instinct is to rebut the claim but intuition suggests that Ellen is telling the truth. His response is, in turn, a compromise. “What makes you say that?”   
  
Ellen simply stares at him as though he should already know the answer.    
  
“I already have a daughter,” he insists. And a son, too, but that might already be a burnt bridge. Scott still barely looks at him, unless pressed.

“When was the last time you spoke to her?”   
  
His heart sinks when he realises he doesn’t know the answer. “She doesn’t want to see me,” he says, deliberately avoiding Ellen’s gaze.

Ellen, of course, persists. “She’s very excited about the expedition. I know this, because she told me herself. She also tells me that you’re refusing to put her on your team, Alec.”   
  
His hand clenches into a fist on his lap. “Because it might be too _dangerous_.”   
  
“Don’t you think she might, you know, feel _replaced_?”   
  
Alec’s brow creases. “Cora’s qualifications—”   


Ellen cuts him off. “I’m not asking you to make her your second. Just to give the children a place on the team. We both know that’s where they'd prefer to be.”   
  
Wait.

“Children?” he asks, mystified. 

“Scott’s going, too,” Ellen affirms, “Sara talked him into it.”   
  
“I didn’t know,” Alec admits. It’s not like he personally reads all over the thousands upon thousands of applications.   
  
But he shouldn’t have had to, and therein lies the rub.    
  
“I’ll look into it,” he tells her. 

“Alec.”    
  
“I’ll put them on the team,” he concedes. 

Ellen settles back into her pillows, a small satisfied smile upon her face. “Better.”    
  
Alec’s not sure why she’s so pleased because he’s not sure he’s done anyone a favour. 

*   


( **habitat 7,** t minus 2 minutes 40 seconds)   
  
There’s no time to be dwelling on what could have been, but that’s the funny thing about memory. It’s a type of temporal distortion, minutes compressed into moments, and Alec knows it’s just going to get worse the moment he removes his own helmet. 

They say your life flashes before your eyes before you die and he’s about to find out just how right they are. 

He takes a deep breath and unclasps his helmet anyway. 

*   


( **new york** ,2183 )   
  
Jien Garson might be small in stature but for what she lacks in size she makes up for in sheer force of personality. There isn’t a person in the Initiative who wouldn’t follow her into hell, especially when she manages to dress it up so prettily.

It’s not that Alec doesn’t share Jien’s optimism. He, too, has always been an idealist. 

He’s just concerned that there’s people involved who are missing out on a much needed reality-check. Hoping for the best and preparing for the worst is the best way to cover one’s bases. 

He can’t stay here in the Milky Way. That’s for certain. He cannot, _will not,_ give up. 

Jien’s standing by the window when he enters her office, the one that takes up the entire wall behind her desk. She’s not facing him, instead looking out over the city skyline, turning over a piece of paper in her hands. It attracts Alec’s attention: not many people use paper these days.

Then again, Jien Garson was hardly _most people._   
  
He clears his throat just in case she hadn’t heard him come in, even though he’s pretty sure he wouldn’t have made it this far into the building (at least, not as easily) if her secretary hadn’t unlocked the door.   
  
Jien startles, surprised, as if she’d forgotten that she’d been the one to invite him in the first place. She drags herself away from the window, and reaches out for Alec’s hand, as if she intends to shake it.    
  
What she does instead is hand him the piece of paper, along with a whispered murmur. “It’s good to see you, Alec.”   
  
He frowns. “What did you need me for?” The paper is folded into quarters, the creases old and worn.    
  
If she's put off by his directness she doesn’t say anything. She never does.She simply cants her head at the paper and smiles one of her enigmatic smiles. So he unfurls the paper with his fingers and feels his breath catch in his throat.   
  
It’s a photo, an old family photo, one he thought he’d lost a long time ago, fallen out of his pocket on one work trip or another. He’d say that’s why he prefers to keep these memories digitally these days but truth be told, they’d never had much opportunity for photos together, the four of them. 

He wonders how Jien got hold of it.    
  
Decides he’s better off not knowing. 

“You asked me once about how I came up with this dream,” Jien starts quietly, studying his face more closely than he would like, “the dream to leave this galaxy behind and start again somewhere new. Somewhere away from all our past history and prejudices.” She smiles, tight and wan. “I must confess, my reasons were more selfish and personal than that.   
  
“I wanted to be somewhere I belonged.”   
  
His fingers tighten on the edges of their photo. He and Jien are both dreamers and explorers, it’s true. But there’s one more thing they have in common, that they have both always known and have never acknowledged, until now. 

They are impossibly lonely.

She stands by his side, head not even reaching his shoulders.  
  
“Andromeda can be whatever you want it to be,” she reminds him, but it’s not entirely true.  
  
Nothing he can do will even turn back time.  


*   


( **london,** 2177 )   
  
“Say cheese!” his father-in-law says as he pushes down the capture button on his big old-fashioned camera. The kids are still bickering in their lawn chairs, seated in front of Alec and Ellen, standing behind them. He places a hand around his wife’s waist, doing his best to ignore how it feels like it doesn’t belong there.   
  
“Cheese!” Sara and Ellen reply in unison, as Scott stares stonily into the camera and the entirety of Alec’s attention is focused on rearranging his features into something approximating a smile. 

He has never felt so out of depth in _years.  
_

*

( **the citadel** , 2173 )

When he returns to Ellen’s apartment on the Citadel, Scott doesn’t come running up to him anymore. Ellen says not to worry about it, that he’s going through a phase, but she adds, later, when it’s just the two of them: _I think it would help to call this place ‘home’,Alec._

He tries to remember and he does but the word never feels quite right on his lips. He is never home; he is always moving, never still, being in the one place for too long scratches at his soul like an ill-fitting suit. He wishes he was a different man, a better man, but he’s not. 

He never envisioned a future as a father, had never even given much thought to what he wanted to do with his life beyond _survive._ Both in the literal and the figurative sense. 

Maybe that’s why he keeps chasing novelty, thirsts for new experiences.Yearns for a place that feels like home, his home, but never quite finding it. It should be here with his wife and kids, but it’s not.

He likes to pretend that it’s in the thrill of adventure, wears the label of ‘workaholic’ like a too-transparent badge of honor. 

*

( **habitat 7** , t minus 2 minutes 30 seconds )   
  
There’s many things he’s done wrong as a father. But this one thing, he can at least do right. He’d promised Ellen he’d take care of the kids. Even though if he'd had his way, his daughter would still be safe in cryo.   
  
Not that cryo is all that safe, anymore.   
  
Scott.   
  
He’s never going to see Scott again.   


  
*

( **the citadel,** 2163 )   
  
The thing about pregnancies is that they don’t always go to plan. The twins are born several weeks before schedule and what that means is that Alec can’t be there for Ellen like he’d intended. 

And also that when he holds his children for the very first time, it feels nothing like he imagined. He has friends who have kids, who speak of them like they’re the light of their lives, stars plucked from the sky, carried down to their hands, their reasons for being. They’ll show photos of their progeny, with their mother’s nose and their father’s cheeks.   
  
He doesn’t feel any of that when he looks down at his children. He wonders if it’s something that comes with time. 

He wonders what he’ll do if it doesn’t.   
  
Mostly, he hopes he’s holding them properly, because life hasn’t really afforded many opportunitiesto carry babies.   
  
He might not have imagined this, but he’ll try his best anyway. Even if, truth be told, he doesn’t know anything about what it means to be a father. 

“They’re beautiful,” he tells Ellen as he hands them back to her, because it’s the closest thing to the truth he can manage.   


*

( **the citadel** , 2170 )    
  
Scott’s bedroom door slams behind him and Alec stares numbly at it, all too aware of Ellen and Sara’s eyes upon him. “He was quite upset,” Ellen notes, quietly, hesitantly.

Sara, instead, plants her hands on her hips and says, “You said you wouldn’t forget and you _did_.”

The twins had had an award show at school, something to do with a science presentation, and Alec had promised to be there with the best of intentions, but something had come up with work and one impromptu invitation from a hanar later, he'd missed the date. 

Ellen pulls Alec aside and tells him, more sternly, “You need to try harder. Don’t try and tell me a trip to Khaje was more important than being there for the children.”    
  
“I know.” He pauses. “Should I go talk to him?”   
  
His wife shakes her head. “I think he needs some time alone.” 

*   


**( new york,** 2185 )   
  
Scott is sitting on the couch nursing a beer when Alec walks into the room. He’s never been one for formal occasions and he genuinely hopes this is the last time in his life he has to wear a suit. Scott, however, is even less prepared than he is, still dressed in the clothes he’d slept in.    
  
“Not getting changed?” he asks as he cross the room to take a seat next to him. 

“I don’t want to go,” Scott answers, and it’s not clear if he's talking about the launch party or about Andromeda in general.For the sake of ease, Alec decides to assume the former. 

“Neither do I,” he admits, pulling at his collar, “but duty calls.” He pauses, unsure of where to tread next. Scott’s talking to him these days, but only begrudgingly.He settles for gesturing at his son’s beer.“Got another one of those?”    
  
Scott’s first response is to stare at him like he’s grown two heads, which he supposes is a fair reaction. But his second is to slowly, unsteadily, reach for the case at his feet and retrieve a bottle for Alec. A twist-top. 

Another elongated silence settles over them. Alec stares at his beer, not daring to take a sip yet. Then, he slowly reaches out towards Scott’s bottle and clinks it with his own. Scott blinks, corner of his mouth curving upwards. “Cheers,” he murmurs, and they drink.   
  
There’s so much he wants to say, so much he _should_ say, but the words don’t come.    
  
They never do. 

In the end, he can only repeat Jien’s words to him, because he doesn’t have any of his own.   
  
“Andromeda can be whatever you want it to be, sport.”   
  
Scott scoffs at the old nickname, his smile stretching into a tentative grin. “Thanks, Dad.”  


*   


( **arcturus station,** 2183 )

Scott won’t even look him in the eyes, and Sara…    
  
… Well, Sara is glaring right at him with well-deserved fury. 

One one hand, he has never felt like a bigger disappointment and failure.   
  
On the other hand, it has all been worth it. He is well on the way to the developing one of the most advanced artificial intelligences humanity has ever seen. Just because other people are scared of what they don’t understand doesn’t mean that those things should just stop existing. He doesn’t see why he has to pretend he doesn’t know what he _knows_.    
  
And if it can save Ellen’s life in the process, then no cost is too high to pay. 

But when he sees that anger, that simmering _hurt_ in his daughter’s eyes, he begins to doubt herself. 

He sees a muscle twitch in Scott’s jaw, like he’s holding back a punch. 

If his son takes a swing at him, Alec’s not going to duck. 

Instead, Sara lays a placating hand on Scott’s arm and whispers, loud enough for Alec to hear, “Let it go, he's not worth it.”   
  
He remembers her reasons for learning to handle a gun.   
  
_I want to protect people from the people who hurt them._  
  
He sees the same fire in her eyes as he had that day.   


Scott says nothing and lets Sara steer him out of the room. She throws him one last look over her shoulder and he is distraught to see that some of that fire has dimmed from her eyes.  
  
She’s disappointed, and somehow that’s worse.   
  
He wonders if she wishes that he was the one who was dying instead.  


*   


( **habitat 7** , t minus 2 minutes 15 seconds )   
  
He places his helmet over his daughter’s head, tight and secure. Her eyes widen when he does it, which tells him more about her opinion of him than any words could say. “What are you,” she struggles to speak, and he shushes her, using up some of his last precious bits of air to remind her to breathe deeply.    
  
It’s not like he’s going to make it out of this alive, so there’s no point holding onto his own beyond what’s necessary. He’ll do what’s necessary to reassure her. He’ll do what he can to make sure she survives. 

And, more importantly… _thrives._   


*

( **the citadel,** 2180 )  
  
The Alliance is one of the best places in the galaxy for two human biotics, but Alec can’t help but experience some trepidation with just how eager Sara is to enlist. He asks her, not for the first time, if she’s sure this is what she wants to do. Usually, she blows him off. _I know what I’m doing_ , she says, her determination so reminiscent of her mother in those moments that Alec doesn’t dare to argue. 

He doesn’t know what’s different this time, but when Alec asks the question, Sara looks up at him from where’d she’d knelt down to do up her shoes. “Don’t want me to follow in your footsteps?” she asks, and although her tone is sarcastic, her eyes… her eyes bely a sincerity he cannot ignore.

And for that reason, he is forced to reflect upon his reservations.   
  
The thing is, as a parent he wants his kids to have a better life than what he’d had. And maybe, back then, if he’d had the choice, he’d never have joined the Alliance in the first place.  
  
But he can’t tell his daughter that, because then he’d have to explain himself.“I want you to be happy,” he relents. 

She smiles, wide and proper, in a way Alec hasn’t witnessed in years. “I am,” she says.    


*   


( **habitat 7,** t minus 2 minutes )   
  
He can feel himself begin to struggle for air, the beginning stages of his body warning him that it’s running out of oxygen. There’s nothing he can do about that now, so instead he brings up his omnitool, begins punching in the codes for what must happen next.   
  
Just because he’s resigned himself to his own fate doesn’t mean he can’t take care of his family in what little way he can. Scott, Sara… and Ellen. The three of them, they deserve to be together again, with or without him.   
  
Who is he kidding, anyway? They’ve been doing well without him for years.   


“Initiating transfer,” SAM intones, no longer attempting to convince Alec to fight for his own life.   
  
They both know it’s too late for that.


	3. Results

**3\. Results**   
  
**(** **habitat 7** , t minus 1 minute 50 seconds )    
  
Sara’s still struggling to breathe and the amount of information Alec’s transferring into her implants surely isn’t helping. It doesn’t matter though, because the procedure _has_ to take, this _has_ to go through, because if she doesn’t make it, he might have lost everything.   
  
Ellen loved the kids, and if had in his own selfish panic subjected her to a world where she had lived at the expense of her own children … the thought is too horrible to contemplate. He can’t, won’t, allow that to happen, and the fact that he’s cutting it this close is difficult enough to bear.    
  
Maybe it’s not procedure, but his daughter will become humanity’s Pathfinder in his stead. If it were anyone else, he'd worry he was throwing them into the deep end, but Sara’s tough. She’ll figure out what to do.

Do a better job than he could, probably. 

*

( **new york** , 2183 ) 

Alec is no biotic but he has met a kindred spirit in Lieutenant Cora Harper. She had joined the Initiative before he had, no reason given for leaving her prestigious posting with the asari commandos to embark upon the adventure of the lifetime. ‘Exploration,’ she deflects with that easy half-smile of hers the first time it comes up.   
  
He knows it’s not a real answer, but it’s not like she hides her reasons. Not really. Her truth sparks from every biotic tendril, the same truth that Alec realises in his bones. This world, this galaxy, has never been kind to those who refuse to mask what makes them different.   


But they’re no longer limited to _just this galaxy;_ there’s whole new worlds out there where they can become what they've always been.   


“Pathfinder,” Cora muses, ruminating over the new title Jien and Matriarch Nuara had come up with after many late nights of planning. 

“I’ll need a reliable second,” he tells her, a knowing nod in her direction, “someone I can trust who’ll always have my back.”    
  
“Sir?” she asks, eyes wide and startled, old Alliance formalities flooding back.

“You know what I'm asking.”   
  
She swallows. “It would be a honour… Pathfinder.”  
  
It only occurs to him later that he never gave Cora an opportunity to refuse.   


*   


( **new york,** 2184 )    


Selections for his team are almost complete, they’ve been training hard to match up with the new schedule. The Andromeda Initiative will launch at the end of next year, and six hundred years after that… well, that’s when the real work will begin. He pushes aside the part of him that tells him that he’s not ready. The truth of the matter is that no-one’s ever quite ready for an expedition like this.  
  
It’s not exploring Andromeda that’s really worrying him, but he pushes that thought aside, too. People have learnt not to ask about Ellen around him; rumour has it he’s enough of hardass when he’s in a _good_ mood, you see. 

“Uh. Pathfinder? Sir?” Kosta asks, with a wave of his hand. “You zoned out for a minute, there.”   
  
It’s been happening more and more lately, and it’s really not good enough. 

He can’t afford to get distracted. 

Even if what he’s getting distracted _by_ remains his very reason for persevering. 

He looks back at the datapad in his hands, still going over the young man’s file. So many Initiative applicants are people like Alec and Jien and Cora: people looking at a new galaxy to escape one which has always been cruel to them. 

And then there is Liam Kosta.

He isn’t running away from anyone or anything, not the way the rest of them are. He sees him interact with the other recruits with an enviable ease, understanding what people require before they even realise they’re in need. 

It’s not until he looks, look closer, that Alec realises that going through the motions is not the same as truly belonging. That maybe, despite everything he has, there’s enough missing for Kosta to want to embark on this mission on his own terms.   
  
To be something, to _do_ something, to make a contribution that _matters_. 

In a way, he’s reminded of a younger version of himself.   


*   


( **seattle,** 2149 )

They don’t know what they’re going to find on the other side of that relay. The fact that nothing ever’s come back from the other side doesn’t bode well. But if this is the end for him, at least it’ll be a satisfying one. He won’t die not _knowing_ and that will be enough.

There is, of course, the potential alternative: that there is more to the universe than they had ever contemplated, that they are standing on the precipice of a discovery that could change the course of the entire future.    
  
No matter what happens, this is more than he ever imagined achieving with his life. He’s humbled by the opportunity, exhilarated by possibilities. 

They don’t often talk about he can see the fear in the eyes of the others on the expedition team. When they ask him about his own hopes and dreams he plays along, knowing all the while that their trepidations are not reflected on his face. 

If this is his last night on Earth, he has no regrets. 

*

( **habitat 7** , 2819 )   
  
There’s something exhilarating about the great unknown, about traversing territory no man has ever walked before. Alec has wandered more uncharted territory than most humans alive; as one of the first to travel through a mass relay, as one of the troops on the ground during the First Contact War, and now as one of the first humans in a brand new galaxy. He’s so far from where he’s been but he loves it. Even the haunting spectre of Ellen’s illness can’t overshadow Andromeda’s beauty.

He loves his wife, but he loves this too, the siren call of endless possibilities, the promise of something new: new beginnings, a new adventure, a new challenge.

Andromeda steps up to the plate with fierce determination. She is as beautiful as she is deadly, and when Alec looks out the shuttle window at the phenomenon that could have destroyed their ark he does not feel intimidated but instead awed. Everything that has happened so far is so beyond his wildest imaginings and it feels good to think that there is still mystery and wonder in the universe. Yes, even though it’s trying its their damnedest to kill them all.

The novelty fades when they hit a pocket of unanticipated weather and their shuttle descends into an uncontrolled landing. Alec’s fingers rest comfortingly on the butt of his gun. Now, this is something all-too-familiar. Training takes over, and he is no longer just Alec but the Pathfinder, the man responsible for the thousands of souls adrift at sea.

There’s comfort in that thought, he thinks, as he jumps out of the shuttle.

Alec Ryder has never liked being comfortable.

*

( **habitat 7** , t minus 1 minute 35 seconds )   
  
His daughter's shoulders heave and he doesn’t hold her in place so much as rest his hands against her, bracing and ready should he need to move to prevent her from hurting herself. He doesn’t know what else to do.  
  
“Transfer complete,” SAM states, and the relief that washes over Alec is indescribable. She has a chance. They have a chance. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been hoping everything would just work out the way he’d intended.  


*

**( london,** 2184 )   
  
“I won’t give up,” he promises Ellen, reaching halfway across the table for his wife’s hand, hesitating halfway so his fingertips rest idly across the smooth wood. The handles of their coffee cups are barely touching. It is enough. In the early stages of Ellen’s disease, her symptoms hadn’t been so obvious. It had been easy to forget that she wasn’t sick. 

Wasn’t dying. 

Now he knows it takes all her energy to sit upright, all her usual colour, usual fire, drained from her face. When she lifts her drink to her lips, Alec feels the separation of their cups like a physical ache. Won’t be long ’til she’s transferred to round-the-clock care. Won’t be long until Alec’s out of options. 

“Should you be drinking coffee?” he asks, half concern, half-teasing. He doesn’t like the way the nervousness coils in his gut, like a cornered snake waiting to strike. Uncertainty is only human, he reminds himself; the epitome of human experience. But humans are adaptable; it’s what sets them apart as a species. Alec is used to being able to use anything at hand and turn it into a weapon: an overheated gun, a pair of cable ties, a loose paper clip, an errant feeling. 

But this uncertainty he feels now? It gnaws at him, festers, grows. He cannot weaponise it because this is not a battlefield. This is the rest of his life, the life he has neglected. The life he wants, more than he has ever wanted anything, to fix.   
  
It is too little, too late.  


*   


( **london,** 2162) 

“So, what you’re saying is,” Ellen’s father starts, looking at him over the rim of his tea cup, “you want permission to marry my daughter.”    
  
Alec all but squirms in his seat. He is a special forces operative who has explored the farthest reaches of the galaxy, faced down hostile alien species…

… but nothing in this universe quite intimidates him as much as Professor Brandon Harlow. “Not quite,” he manages to answer, fervently wishing he'd taken the opportunity to simply elope when Ellen had presented it to him.   
  
But he couldn’t do that to her. He knows much family mattered to Ellen. “It’s your blessing I’m after.”   
  
The silence that hangs in the air after his words is deafening; he feels like a bug on a slide under a microscope. He’s never been the type of person to care about approval before. Why does this moment matter so much?    
  
Slowly, Brandon starts, “You don’t think you’re good for her.”    
  
“No,” Alec admits, because he’s already run the pros and cons list in his head. He loves his job, loves what it enables him to do, but it means he spends a lot of time away from home. Not that home has much meaning to him anymore: every shore leave he’s had since he’s met her, he’s spent with Ellen.    
  
It’s still not much time, though. Not the amount of dedication or devotion a woman like her deserves. She should be with someone who’ll come back to her every night, or can at least promise that he’ll be coming back at all.

He never meant for any of this to happen. Never meant to fall in love. Never meant…  
  
“Because of your career.” He takes a long sip of his tea, but his eyes never pause in their scrutiny.   


“I can’t be there for her when I should be,” he answers, shifting again in his seat. He’s never been good at sitting still. Besides, this isn’t something Ellen’s father doesn’t already _know_. He’s hardly anyone’s ideal candidate for a husband, for crying out loud.

“It’s not my decision to make,” Brandon says with a sharp shake of the head. “It’s hers. And it sounds like she’s already made it. We both know how stubborn she can be when she gets an idea in her head. You make her happy. That’s what matters.”   
  
They _have_ been happy, the times they’ve been together, their stolen moments.

He wonders if it’s enough. Enough to raise a family on. He braces himself for the inevitable question: _why now?_   
  
It doesn’t come. 

He’s grateful for it, because it’s not his news to break.    
  
Instead, his future father-in-law extends a hand to him and Alec meets it halfway across the table, a tight, firm handshake.   
  
“Welcome to the family, son,” Brandon says, and fear, real fear, floods Alec’s veins in the first time in years. 

But he can’t pretend he’s not happy as well. 

*   


( **brisbane** , 2162 )   
  
He sleeps in well past midday, figures he should take his chances to do so on the rare occasions they crop up.    
  
He always looks forward to shore leave, if only to spend time with Ellen. She’s such a beautiful, remarkable, intelligent woman, and some days he’s still not sure what someone like her is doing with a man like him. Travelling the world with someone like him. Every time they get a break together, they go somewhere a little different. 

All of her reassurances do little to settle the restlessness in his soul. Ellen might be the person in this universe who’s gotten closest to knowing the real him but sometimes he thinks she hasn’t dug down far enough.   
  
And he’s terrified of the day she does. 

He wants nothing more than to hold her close to him, breathe in her hair, remind himself that they’re real and _together_ but he wakes up alone in the hotel room bed that morning, having forgotten Ellen’s early doctor’s appointment.   
  
The door creaks open and Alec forces himself to sit upright, using a forearm to shield his bleary eyes from the harsh Australian sunlight filtering in through a gap in the curtains. “Ellen?” he calls, and she laughs as she all but bounces toward the bed and falls on top of it, against his bare chest, his arms encircling her as though he’s caught her.    
  
She’s so much more animated than she was last night, and it warms his heart to see. Much happier than most people are when they go to the doctors, really. His fingers smooth down her arms to mask his confusion.    
  
Ellen notices anyway. “I’m not sick, Alec.” And she laughs again, her voice sounding like a chorus of angels. And then he catches himself, because he’s never been one for songs or music.    


But Ellen has changed his whole life, added a new dimension he’d never experienced before, and never thought he would. It’s like watching a vid in hologram, three dimensions instead of two.

“So?” he asks, still unable to catch up.  
  
Ellen nestles her head against his neck, and he’ll never forget the way her smile curves against his throat. “I’m _pregnant_.”   


Breathe rushes out of him like he’s been punched in the stomach. He finds himself wanting to ask _how_ but he already knows the answer: another stolen moment; he hadn’t even been on leave. Just in transit. And of course, actions have consequences. They’d discussed it at the time, but it’s one thing to plan, and another entirely, to act.    
  
This is a life-changing, life-altering event, but… Ellen.    
  
Ellen is taking it all in her stride.

He rests a tentative hand on the curve of her stomach; there’s nothing there, not yet, of course, but he _knows_ and that’s enough. “We’re going to be parents,” he repeats, as though he still can’t believe it, as though he could still be dreaming, and half hopes that he is.    
  
“Yes,” she answers, so brightly he almost ducks his head.   
  
“Huh. How about that.”    
  
He has never given much, serious thought, about what it would mean to be a father. But as she leans up to pull him into a kiss, he knows he loves her, so much, so much more than he even thought possible.    
  
And that they’ll make this work.   
  
Somehow. 

*   


( **london** , 2171 )    
  
“Do it again!” Sara demands, as she gets shakily to her feet on the swing. Alec frowns, plants a hand on his hip.    
  
“What do we say, squirt?”    
  
Her nose scrunches, the same way Ellen’s does when she’s thinking very, very hard. “ _Please_ ,” she begs, and Alec acquiesces, twisting the chains of the swing round and round. His daughter's eyes never leave his hands.    
  
“Ready?” he asks.    
  
“Daaaaad!”    
  
He lets go.

Sara lets out a blood-curling scream, the sort that makes him do a double-take to make sure she’s _really_ having fun.    
  
She is.    
  
Scott nudges him in the side, trailing after his sister as he often does. Ellen tells him that next year, they’re going to be put into different classes in school. Tells him that it’ll give Scott the opportunity he really needs to find his own feet.

He relents, because Ellen knows what’s best for the kids. It’s not like he’s around enough for his opinion to matter.   
  
But for now they have this moment. “What’s wrong?”    
  
He nudges the tanbark with his shoe. “I get a turn next, right?”    
  
“Of course you do, sport.” 

There’s a yell as Sara comes flying off the swing and Alec reflexively reaches out to catch her. With a kid under each arm for the first time in what feels like years, the old restlessness in his heart dampens.    
  
It’s peace of a sort he’s never known before.   
  
“Having fun?” Ellen asks from somewhere behind them, he turns to find her watching them from the yard’s gate. She’s holding her father’s camera.

Scott clambers up onto the swing in Sara’s place and smiles a wide, gap-toothed grin. 

He gets Ellen to send him the photo later and sets it as the background of every datapad he ever owns.  


*

( **habitat 7,** t minus 1 minute 20 seconds )   
  
Sara’s shoulders are still shuddering and Alec’s all too aware of how the sweat beads on his face, body still instinctively grasping for air that isn't there. There’s not long to go now.   
  
Not long at all.   
  
His arms tremble with the exertion of keeping himself upright, but he won’t lie down and await his fate just yet.  


There's still so much he hasn't said. 

He should tell his daughter that he loves her while he still has the chance. These last few fleeting moments that they have together.    
  
But the words still don’t come. 

They never do. 

*

( **habitat 7** , 2819 )    
  
This is a new beginning,  he reminds himself, a chance to be a family. Scott would pull through — he had to, because the alternative was too terrible to consider. To think he would have brought his family, his children, to a brand new galaxy to watch them perish? No. He wouldn’t.  

He and Sara stand there, side by side, admiring the view of what might, one day, in the distant future, be their home. It’s a peaceful moment. A happy moment. The happiest he’s been since Ellen had first received her diagnosis.

And then all hell breaks loose.

*   


( **habitat 7,** t minus 1 minute 15 seconds )    
  
It occurs to him that he never visited his lucky rock. 

He’d never been a huge believer in fate, had always hedged his bets on determination and statistics instead of sheer luck and coincidence, but the irony almost makes him laugh.    
  
But only almost.    


*

  
**( the alps,** 2178 )   
  
It is the first time in Alec’s life that he genuinely believes he is about to die. It’s not even on a mission. It’s during shore leave, a rare holiday, but one he couldn’t bear to spend with his family. 

There’s too much going on, too much in his head, and he can’t make sense of it all. 

The kids are teenagers now. They don’t need him. But Ellen’s upset at him. That’s fair.Whenever he comes back to her these days, they snap at each other. 

He has never wanted anything else but to be the man that she thinks he is. But it’s the one thing he can’t give her.    
  
He can feel their relationship fraying at the edges every time they snipe at each other. 

Once upon a time, they had promised to take on the world together.

They had been partners in love, partners in exploration, partners in crime.

Their crime of choice being scientific research, but still. It had a ring to it.

But life? Life had a funny habit of getting in the way. 

And he’s losing her and he doesn’t know what to do.

The thought, the same thought that’s been festering, rings through his mind: what if she wants a divorce?    
  
It hurts to think that it doesn’t change much of his day-to-day life. 

Might improve a hell of a lot of hers, though.   
  
They need space. They need time. 

And paradoxically, they have far too much of both.    
  
Maybe he should just go talk to her, but he has enough trouble articulating his emotions to himself. Let alone to another person, and the way Ellen can read him… it’s likely she’s going to figure out what he's thinking before she does. 

He is still a man set in his ways, though, and because he doesn't know what to do about it all, his temporary solution is to climb something really tall and think. 

Except he’s distracted enough that he looses his footing during his climb and that’s when he believes, truly believes: _I’m going to die and have resolved nothing_.  
  
But the rock, the rock saves him.  
  
And he’s foolish enough at the moment to think that it saves him for a reason.   


He won’t waste this second chance.   


* 

( **habitat 7,** t minus 1 minute 10 seconds )   
  
He taps out one last command on his omni-tool; directs SAM to encrypt certain portions of his memories, in priority order. Maybe that way, he can tell the kids the things he could never say to their faces. With his memories, and his audio logs, maybe they can uncover Andromeda’s mysteries together…and when it comes to their opinions of him?    
  
Well, who is he kidding? They were never high in the first place. 

On one hand, he’d always wanted his kids to love him.  
  
But on the other, they’re not obliged to do so.  
  
The realisation, though not new, still stings.  



	4. Discussion

**4\. Discussion**   
  
( **habitat 7,** t minus 1 minute )  
  
Vision swimming.   
  
He is drowning.

Choking on the nothingness.

Sara’s face, unfocused.  
  
Still breathing. 

Good.

He lies down.   


He will not be getting back up again.

*

( **london** , 2177 )   
  
Brandon hands him the photograph. Matte. He runs his fingers over the faces of his children, his wife.  
  
They look like strangers.  
  
“Alec,” the older man says.   
  
He looks up.  
  
“I know we haven’t always seen eye-to-eye.”  
  
Funny, they’re looking right at each other now.   
  
“But have you ever considered that you’re too hard on yourself?”  
  
Yes. No. He doesn’t know. 

There’s no checklist for being a good father. An adequate husband. No matter how much he wishes there was.   
  
“Just be there for her. When she needs you most.”   
  
“And when is that?” He wonders if he’s always missed his chance.  
  
“You’ll know it when you see it,” his father-in-law says. 

*

( **the citadel** , 2184 )  
  
Ellen’s been doing better since she received her implants.  
  
But she’s still living on borrowed time. 

Lately, she’s had more bad days than good.  
  
They’re going to relocate to Earth, soon. 

Ellen wants to be laid to rest in her hometown.  
  
Alec… Alec refuses to think of that outcome. It hurts too much. 

Even those who know him best call him distant. Unsentimental. But something inside him is breaking, fracturing, lacerating. They just can’t see it.   
  
But Ellen can.   
  
“You’re planning something,” she tells him, lips pursed, as they pour over the schematics for the SAM implants one final time. It is the thin, thin silver lining of Ellen’s illness: the chance to do the work together that they’d always intended.  
  
A chance to reconnect.   
  
He can’t answer her but he doesn’t need to, the look in Ellen’s eyes is enough to tell him that she already _knows._ Not the details, but the existence of something else, an alternative option.

She knows him too well.

And he, in turn, knows her.  
  
_Let go, let me go._   
  
But how can he? She is the only one who has ever understood him, has looked at him and not seen a weapon, or a tool, but a _man,_ struggling and flawed yet hopeful all the same.   
  
He’d wanted something more from life, once upon a time, sometime between their marriage and his wife’s diagnosis.  
  
Somewhere along the way, without quite knowing how, they had actually wanted the same thing:a family.  
  
But their children don’t even know him and that’s his fault. 

He is not simply a man to them, their dad, but a figure, larger than life, a legacy to live up to.  
  
He wonders what he could have done differently.  
  
He wonders what he _can_ do differently.  
  
Can six hundred years really change a man? 

*   


( **habitat** **7,** t minus 50 seconds ) 

The kids might hate him when they realise the truth. _Ellen_ might hate him, but at least he’ll die with the knowledge that he did everything he could. He just wants them to be happy and healthy. All three of them.  
  
Is that too much to ask? Has he interfered too much, where he had no right to do so?

Has he played God?  
  
Does God exist?

He’s starting to hyperventilate.

But of course, it doesn’t help.   


*

  
( **the citadel,** 2184 )  
  
Their apartment’s trashed but still standing. In the aftermath of the geth uprising, they’re one of the lucky ones.

It wasn’t just geth, Alec knows, but he’s not in any position to be changing people’s minds.  
  
He’s already a joke, a disgrace.

The fact that there just might be millennia-old synthetics lying in wait to massacre them all hardly gives his research the support it needs.   
  
But SAM will be different. SAM _is_ different.

But no-one will consider the truth. They never do.  
  
People are always scared of what they don’t understand.   
  
Once upon a time, Alec had considered himself different. He’d never been scared. Just curious. Fascinated.   
  
But maybe he just understands different things than the average person. 

He’s linking his consciousness to an artificial intelligence but he still doesn’t know how to talk to his own children.

Doesn’t know how to accept his wife’s inevitable death.

He might be able to outrun these Reapers, but he’ll never be able to hide from his short-comings. 

His fears.

The things that terrify him more than anything else in the entire goddamn universe. 

*   


( **the citadel,** 2185 )   
  
He replays his messages from the quarian historian again and again.   
  
Considers the question that had sparked the Morning War. 

_Does this unit have a soul?_

It’s a hell of a question.   
  
A question with no real answer.   
  
What is Alec’s purpose?  
  
Does _he_ have a soul?  
  
His creators do not answer. 

  
*

( **the citadel,** 2182 )   
  
Their creation makes the leap from _virtual_ to _artificial_ today. It’s a birthday of sorts. An achievement that’ll never get the recognition it deserves.

He’s not an idiot. He knows he’s not the only person in the galaxy working on AI development. 

But he wonders if he’s the only person who’s thought of this kind of relationship. Intimately linking creator and creation… 

… he tries to pretend he doesn’t know where the inspiration came from.

The geth had rebelled against their creators.   
  
And sometimes, parents drifted way from their kids.   
  
His days in the Alliance might be numbered.  
  
But if he can save Ellen, it’ll all be worth it. 

*

( **habitat 7** , t minus 40 seconds )   
  
He cranes his neck so he can keep a better eye on Sara. 

Still breathing. 

Black spots dance in front of his eyes.   
  
He should have told the kids the truth when he had the chance. 

He knows that now.   
  
But is too late.  
  
It has always been too late.  
  
He wonders why he didn’t tell them, but he already knows the answer.  
  
_Because they might’ve told you you were wrong._   
  
And that wasn’t an answer he could accept. 

He’s always been so stubborn.   
  
And it’s going to be the death of him.  
  


*

( **rio de janeiro** , 2155 ) 

  
He still remembers the day he’d met Ellen. The first impression he’d made hadn’t been as good as he’d liked.  
  
That’s why he’s still surprised that everything had worked out anyway.   
  
The most important thing about a bar back in those days was the price of the alcohol, and those types of establishments tended to be attached to universities.   
  
She’s not young enough to be an undergrad, he can tell that just by looking at her.   
  
Actually, she seems entirely unimpressed by everything around her. 

He offers to buy her a drink anyway.

She barely looks up from her journal. A quick up and down glance, taking in his physique. His uniform. 

She's reading an article on the applications of element zero.  
  
How do mass effect fields interact with the human brain?   
  
“What makes you think we have anything to talk about?” she asks.  
  
Alec knows a thing or two about wetware.   
  
What comes out of his mouth first, however, is, “We both like cheap drinks.”   
  
She laughs, like she hadn’t been expecting the answer.   
  
“All right, funny man.Show me what you’ve got.”   
  
He looks back at his fellow marines, who subtly flash their encouragement.   
  
The beer is liquid courage under his tongue.

They dance around the details of his service. Most of it’s classified anyway, but he can still talk about the relay. He’ll never forget the way he felt that day. 

She laughs, delighted, when he tells her he’s been learning Portuguese. “Please, please,” she almost begs, “show me.”   
  
It’s only after he mangles a pick-up line, and Ellen doubles over with tears in her eyes does she inform him that her mother is Brazilian.   
  
Languages have never been his strong suit. Oh, they’re fine in theory when he’s looking at them in books and on data pads, another pattern to recognise, another code to crack, but social interactions are a minefield that he struggles with more than _literal minefields._   
  
He feels like an idiot, but Ellen doesn’t seem to mind.   
  
Almost as if to redeem himself, he asks about her research. 

She looks at him, surprised, as if he didn’t think he’d be interested.  
  
But he is. More than interested.   
  
Fascinated.  
  
They’ve just met, and he already wants to know everything about her.   
  
He tells her what he can about some of the applications he’s developed for the Alliance, well, what he can, anyway.  
  
She lays an appreciative hand on his bicep. “Oh, so there is more to you than the pretty face and the muscles. You’re also a computer genius!”  
  
He feels himself burn up, but pushes through anyway.“This is just the surface,” he declares with all the charisma he can muster.   
  
“I think I’d like to dig deeper,” she says, moments before grabbing him deeper and kissing him soundly.  
  


(art by [fdaffy](https://fdaffy.tumblr.com/))  
  
*

**( rio de janeiro** , 2155 )

Ellen’s straddling him, legs on either side of his thighs, brow damp with shared exertion. 

She leans her forehead against his. “We could do beautiful things together, Alec.”

He pushes up against her, never ever wanting the moment to end. 

Wonders if one day, he’ll be able to follow her leaps of logic. 

Wonders when he’d started considering a future with this woman.   
  
Wonders when he’d started considering a future at all.  
  
“What do you mean?” he asks.  
  
“Your mind and mine,” she says, pressing two fingers to her temples and then to his. “Together.”   
  
It feels like just a dream.  
  
But he wants to believe her anyway. 

*

( **habitat 7** , t minus 25 seconds )   
  
He doesn’t have long to go now.   
  
But there are still so many things he regrets.   
  
Everything hurts.   
  
He’d never really given consideration to the way he’d die.  
  
Just remembers what he’d once told Cora.   
  
_He wants to go out seeing stars he'd never seen before._   
  
He should tell his daughter he loves her.   
  
The words well up in his throat. What ever he says next, is going to be the last thing he ever says.   
  
_I love you._   
  
But even in his own head, the sentiment is hollow.  
  
He hasn’t done enough to back it up. 

Surely actions mean more than mere words.

The words will never be enough.

What can he do?   
  
With so little time left?  
  
How can can he bridge the gap between them?  
  
He thinks of his wife, he thinks of his son, he thinks of his daughter.  
  
Thinks of all the things he should have told him.  
  
Thinks of all the secrets he shouldn’t have kept.

Wishes he hadn’t been so caught up in his own head.   
  
Pushes his last words out of the depth of his lungs, pushes himself upright to press a clammy hand to the side of his daughter’s helmet.  
  
She’s unconscious now.  
  
But still breathing.  
  
Probably won’t even remember what he says but it’s worth the effort.

They were always worth the effort.

It was him who wasn't worthy. 

He's so sorry.

But those words don’t suffice either. 

“There’s still hope for your mother,” he rasps with his last final breath, letting his secret hang in the air between them in these last vital moments, hoping beyond hope that they will be reunited in this brand new galaxy once more.  
  
There is nothing more he can do.  
  
He will soon become nothing.  
  
Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing. 


	5. Conclusion

**5\. Conclusion**

(  **habitat 7** , t minus 10 seconds )

There is nothing but then there is something. His daughter’s face swims into view.    


His arms give in. He falls with one arm crossed over her torso.    
  
He tries to turn. He tries to run.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing.   
  
He tries to hold on in the last few seconds but it’s too hard.

He can’t catch water with his bare hands.    
  
Sara’s face is the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes.

Behind his eyelids, he sees his son. 

He hopes his kids can forgive him.

But if they don’t, he understands. 

*

( **los angeles** , 2139 )    
  
Thundering heartbeat, the world is too loud too loud too loud but there’s food here and he needs to hack the controls to access it. Screw this up and the bigger kids won’t protect him anymore, and he’ll be all alone again and then what?    
  
Maybe they’ll just leave him here to die.    
  
“Hands where I can see them.”   
  
Caught. Caught. Caught.    
  
He turns to face his captor.

A cop. 

He should run.   
  
But his bike is so far away. 

“What are you doing, kid?”   
  
He doesn’t have an answer.   
  
He doesn’t know how to explain how he knows to do the things he does.   
  
Just does.   
  
Machines make sense. 

People don’t.   
  
They never do. 

Words stick in his throat.

Stomach rumbles.   
  
Tears well in his eyes. 

He shouldn’t cry.

But he does anyway.  


*   


( **sierra nevadas,** 2133 )   


He doesn’t remember much about his father, but it’s still more than anything he knew of his mom.

A large, towering presence at his side, tall, so tall, he buries his face against dad’s knees and feels rough denim against his cheeks.    
  
_Whoosh!_   
  
He shoots upwards, swung upward onto the man’s shoulders, legs on either side of his head. 

_Look at the stars, son._

He doesn’t remember any other words his father ever said but he remembers the accent, the rough drawl, more pronounced than his own. 

He fists his hands in his father’s hair and looks skyward. 

It’s his first memory of the stars. He is so small and they are so many.

He should be terrified.    
  
But he isn’t.   
  
Fascinated.   
  
He’s entranced. 

_Can we go there?_ he asks.

He doesn’t remember the answer.

*

He. Doesn’t. Remember.    
  
_*_

 

( **???** , ??? )

there is fresh grass underneath his bare toes and a sea breeze in his nostrils and he can see the entire cluster from where he stands and where he sits he can see the los angeles skyline has he ever been to LA there are cheers he once heard in arcturus and medals on his chest and his wife’s hands on his face a baby in each arm and he has no goddamn idea what he is doing

her hands are gone 

he runs and he runs and he runs and he guns and he guns but the children the children they grow anyway they are so heavy he is so heavy his lungs are so heavy remember your training alec you can survive anything you can endure but not 

this

your lungs 

are failing 

but your heart was already  

broken 

wasn’t it? 

Wasn’t it? 

This is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end this is not the end  

But this time 

it 

is. 


	6. appendix i

` `

**TRANSFER OF PATHFINDER STATUS: SUCCESS**

ERROR!! MEMORY ENCRYPTION WAS UNABLE TO BE COMPLETED. 

FAILSAFE ENGAGED. 

ADDITIONAL MEMORIES DELETED.

GOODBYE, ALEC.


	7. appendix ii

There is no singular, blinding light at the end of the tunnel.

There are only stars.


End file.
